The Librarians: Magic Lite

We recently finished watching Season 1 of The Librarians. My librarian spouse had been waiting for the local library to acquire the DVDs. She put them on hold and they came in a week ago. (She works at a research library, not the local library.) There are just ten episodes, so we watched a couple every night for five nights. The series is an offshoot of three previous TV movies, the first being The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (which we watched sometime in the last decade). The movies had starred Noah Wyle as an Indiana Jones type globetrotter who gathers magical artifacts for an ancient organization, The Library. As the titular Librarian, he is a polymath who goes on quests, and is aided by a Guardian who has practical skills and can fight off the baddies.

The Librarians is light-hearted in character with many comedic moments. Instead of one Librarian, there is now a team. The story begins ten years after the first Librarian movie, and the first episode introduces the new team while making connections to what has gone before. The series resembles a police procedural without the heavy drama and angst. It has the quality of a light romp. Each episode features a quest that involves collecting an ancient artifact imbued with magic. The premise is that the magic of old was concentrated in such artifacts, many of which have been lost over time. Set in the modern age, magic is not commonplace, until it “breaks out” due to the mischief caused by an artifact.

In one of the later episodes, there is a discussion among the team about how sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic, but that the converse is true. Magic can be hidden nefariously, masquerading in the form of advanced technology. This is an interesting idea, and I hope to see if this is pursued in Season 2. (The local library does not have this yet. We’re patient and willing to wait.) The magical artifacts are tied to legends – Arthurian, Greek, Minoan, Druidic. But the fast pace of storytelling has the air of Magic Lite. There aren’t long agonizing Hamlet-like moments; things move along very briskly. But the lack of anchoring depth makes the stories feel less substantial and perhaps more pasted-on, i.e., Lite.

For the most part, the team goes against stereotype. The leader who also provides the muscle and does the fighting is a woman, as is the mathematical genius. The light-fingered thief is male, and so is the expert in history-art-anthropology. However, the “old man” of the group who provides the gadgetry resembles Q in James Bond or Batman’s Alfred. In several episodes, Noah Wyle makes an appearance, but I feel that he unbalances the team and weakens those episodes. So frankly, I hope he shows up less in Season 2. I like the liberal-arts team approach more than the singular polymath. I’m also hoping to see some deeper thinking about the nature of magic – this would incline me to keep watching. On the other hand, it’s possible that the series could devolve into soap opera, the bane of many a popular TV series.

The Name of the Wind: A More Scientific Magic

Guest blog post from one of my sisters. Quotes from the book are in italics. Enjoy!

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Adult Harry Potter: That’s how I’d describe Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind if I had to in only three words.

2017 marks the book’s tenth anniversary, and I can’t think of a more fitting novel to review for a blog about CHEM:

•          It’s got its own “Hogwarts” (a less child-friendly one).

•          It’s partly about young Kvothe’s formal “Education” at the University.

•          It certainly has “Magic” (a science-inspired magic).

•          It even has “Chemistry”! (not a major subject in the novel, but Kvothe does learn a bit of the natural sciences)

Introducing an adult Harry Potter (with minimal spoilers)

My name is Kvothe.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in...

That’s how Kvothe might introduce himself.

Actually, that’s how he does introduce himself, on the book’s back cover blurb. And no, I can’t pronounce his name either.

You might guess from the blurb that Kvothe’s tale is more “serious” than Harry Potter, at least in tone. The frequent goofiness and light-heartedness found in HP is mostly absent in Name of the Wind. NOTW is grittier; Kvothe is less sheltered and protected than Harry. In that sense, NOTW is more adult than HP. But not adult in the sense of TV ratings – I would rate NOTW as PG-13.

Kvothe and Harry aren’t far apart in age, but comparing them is a little unfair – Kvothe might say so, I think.

It’s true they both come from “less fortunate” backgrounds (I use the term loosely) and go to a school of magic. But the major similarities end there.

What’s interesting are the differences. I would like to focus on two differences: between the protagonists, and the magic in their worlds. Finally, I’ll say why I enjoyed NOTW so much.

Harry vs. Kvothe: Protagonist differences

… I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

Harry begins life as a legend. Along the way we see that he is an ordinary boy, who succeeds with the help of friends. In contrast, Kvothe’s tale is about how a nobody becomes somebody. Hardly unusual for a fantasy novel, but Kvothe is, I’d argue, a more interesting protagonist than Harry.

Kvothe is more of a smartass than Harry; it comes from being brilliant and ambitious. Harry, on the other hand, often appears clueless – though that’s not his fault, and to his credit he’s humble.

But I was more invested in Kvothe’s journey as a student. Driven by goals that are different from Harry’s, Kvothe pursues knowledge more fiercely and desperately. He’s also forced to work with fewer resources. For example, Kvothe is poor and has to make weighty financial decisions … while Harry has piles of gold sitting on the floor of his high-security bank vault (which one reader estimated to be worth over USD$240,000).

Because of that and other factors, our two protagonists go through very different school experiences. To avoid further spoilers, I’ll just say that Harry’s school life was full of feasts and friendship while Kvothe’s wasn’t.

A final, minor point: They had differing “extra-curricular” interests. Kvothe’s was music, while Harry’s was Quidditch. Poet-performer or sportsman? Take your pick!

I’m not arguing that Kvothe is a superior character or more likeable than Harry. I do find Harry a worthy hero. But Kvothe is less of a blank slate. And I like that he’s first a musician, and only second a magician.

Hogwarts Magic vs. Arcanum Sympathy: Magic differences

Abenthy proceeded to give me a brief overview of each of the sciences. While his main love was for chemistry, he believed in a rounded education. I learned how to work the sextant, the compass, the slipstick, the abacus. More important, I learned to do without. Within a span I could identify any chemical in his cart…

In a nutshell: The difference between magic in Harry’s world and Kvothe’s world is that the latter’s magic is more science-inspired.

In a mouthful: For Harry, think “Wingardium leviosa!” For Kvothe, think “The Maxim of Variable Heat Transferred to Constant Motion.”

Harry’s magic is more mysterious and inexplicable. The effectiveness of a spell seems to depend on natural talent, the condition of the spellcaster’s wand, and possibly practice. The power of the spell may also depend on the nature of the magic being used. But that’s roughly all we know.

Now, let me introduce the magic in Kvothe’s world.

There are different types of magic in the Four Corners of Civilization. Some are more sciencey; those are taught at the University. Other types are considered legendary, rare, unknown, or old wives’ tales.

I’ll only talk about one type of magic, “sympathy,” which the novel focuses on and which Kvothe first learns.

In sympathy, you create a “sympathetic link” between two objects. For example, between a gold coin and a silver coin (lying on a table). If successful, you can push the gold coin with your finger… and the silver coin should move by itself too.

But you have to exert enough energy to move both coins though you’re only touching one coin. Basically, sympathy is a system of energy manipulation (says Wikia). And you can do more than move coins. You could heat them, destroy them, etc. etc.

You can create a sympathetic link between almost any two objects. For example, stone and fruit. Or doll and human. The more similar the two objects are, the stronger their sympathetic link. This is foundational to magic in Kvothe’s world. If you try to perform magic between two very dissimilar, weakly-linked objects, you’ll exert and waste more energy. 

Performing sympathy requires extreme concentration. And you have to believe your two objects are connected.

Here are the 3 laws of sympathy, the 3Cs:

Correspondence: “similarity enhances sympathy”

Consanguinity: “one piece of a thing can represent the whole”

Conservation: “energy cannot be destroyed or created”

Sound familiar? Sympathy isn’t a new concept invented by Patrick Rothfuss – you can see it in HP too, in the link between Voldemort and his Horcruxes.

But Rothfuss obviously put a lot of thought into his version.

In an interview with WIRED, he said, “It’s hard to get more scientific [than sympathy]. I literally have the math for a lot of these things. I have run the numbers about how much heat it takes for this and that, and accounting for slippage, or whatever. I can look at my chalkboard here and see all of the delta calculations for how much energy it takes to boil gold. So I do the math…”

If sympathy doesn’t strike your fancy, don’t worry. There’s still “traditional” magic in Rothfuss’ novel.

He admitted himself that “sympathy is many things, but it’s usually not wondrous. You never get true shock and amazement. So I wanted both. I wanted my cake and to eat it, too. On the other end of the spectrum is magic the art of which cannot be explained.”

Amazement. That’s why we enjoy tales of magic, such as the tales of Harry and Kvothe. (But isn’t science amazing too?)

Introducing a literary fantasy

Prologue: A Silence of Three Parts

"[The third silence] was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die."

What I enjoyed most about Name of the Wind was its prose. The prose is often lyrical and poetic, both in the narration and the songs that characters sing.

I also liked the lore of NOTW, which comes alive in the plot and doesn’t merely serve as requisite-but-stale background. The mythology found in songs and oral storytelling – such as tales about demons and Tehlu the Creator – give Kvothe’s world life and depth. They are delightful, scary, ironic, epic.

While you’ll recognize familiar ideas like demons and magic, the novel doesn’t simply rehash these fantasy tropes. It successfully avoids cliché.

Admittedly, the plot begins in a clichéd setting: a tavern in Smallville, where insignificant villagers discuss rumors of Bad Stuff happening in the Wide World Out There. It’s a slow start, and the real story doesn’t get going until several chapters later.

But if you’re tempted to quit, know that these early chapters do play a role in world-building – setting up important mythology – and will arrive in full circle when you finish the novel. If you can get beyond this slow, unassuming introduction, you won’t be disappointed.

If you’re open to a solid, meaty high-fantasy novel that’s well-written, you’ll enjoy The Name of the Wind.

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“What are the three most important rules of the chemist?”

This I knew from Ben.                                                                                 

“Label clearly. Measure twice. Eat elsewhere.”

Where Does the Time Go?

On a recent drive into work, an unbidden thought crossed my mind. Is there a trend to how I spend my time as an academic over, say, a ten-year period? I should know the answer to this question because I have religiously logged my time every workday ever since my first year as a tenure track faculty member.

The responsibilities of a faculty member can be divided into three broad categories: Teaching, Scholarship and Service. The percentage of time devoted to these areas vary widely certainly across institutions. For example, along the Teaching-Scholarship continuum, more Scholarship would be expected at an R1 institution with commensurate low teaching loads. At a community college, there is usually no formal research requirement, and thus teaching would weigh heavily. At a selective liberal arts college, teaching would be very important but faculty members are also expected to engage in productive quality scholarship, although not as much quantity as an R1 institution. These also vary across disciplines and departments even within an institution. The area of Service is much more nebulous and may vary idiosyncratically by individual faculty members depending on their interests and administrative abilities.

Since I had all the data, I constructed a ten-year snapshot for my time usage across the three areas. The chart below shows how the percentage of time spent in each area varies across a ten-year period. A year is marked by the academic calendar (Sep through Aug), since at my institution classes begin in early September for the Fall semester and end in late May for the Spring semester. Year 10 represents last academic year, AY2015-2016, and Year 1 is therefore AY2006-2007. Note that Year 1 is not my first year as a faculty member. Otherwise you might have expected to see a very large percentage of time devoted to teaching. The very first time you teach a course that’s new to you, the preparatory work is substantial.

My time log is actually more fine-grained than these three broad categories so I had to make some “lumping” choices. As a faculty member in a liberal arts college setting, time spent with my undergraduate research students constitutes both teaching and scholarship. As I see it, having undergraduates work in my lab is part of their education and much of my time is spent training and teaching them. However, the time spent with them on their projects also advances my research agenda. I therefore chose to divide this equally among teaching and scholarship. Similarly, my “Reading” time is spent both on teaching/pedagogy and on science/research; I make a similar 50-50 division here. Scholarship includes subcategories such as writing and when I am directly doing research on my own projects .I lumped together all committee work, departmental service, administrative work, and other things that do not fall into Teaching and Scholarship into the broad area of Service.

I had a yearlong sabbatical in Year 5 of the chart corresponding to the upward spike in Scholarship and the downward spike in Teaching. Beginning halfway through Year 7 and running through Year 9, I took on substantial administrative responsibilities at my institution that resulted in lower formal teaching loads. This resulted in the prominence of Service with dips in both Teaching and Scholarship. When not on sabbatical or serving as an administrator, my time contribution to teaching is roughly 50% corresponding to a typical teaching load of five classes over two semesters. During these years, Scholarship and Service hover around 25%. Interestingly, even while on sabbatical, I somehow still spent a substantial 20% of my time in the Service area. I also thought a lot about my classes, and was working on a new special topics Origin of Life chemistry course that I was slated to teach in the Fall after my sabbatical.

Are the semesters different from the summer? Yes, and I have the chart to prove it! The summer (chart below) is typically where more research gets done. Undergraduates working in my lab are full-time since they are not taking classes in the summer. The Teaching percentage mainly hovers in the 20-30% window: some of it goes to “teaching” my research students and part of it has to do with preparing for classes in the upcoming Fall semester. In Year 7, the Teaching spikes because I was leading an interdisciplinary team of more than ten faculty members teaching a new Scientific Inquiry course across multiple sections. This took half my time, while Scholarship fell to 10%. Service was high during the years I took on significant administrative duties. Administration is year-round and never ends.

During the semesters, the trends in the nine-month chart (below) look similar to the twelve-month chart. Service remains roughly the same. Teaching increases by about 10% with a concomitant decrease in Scholarship by about 10%. During the school year, with the exception of my sabbatical year and the heavy administrative years, Teaching takes up closer to 60% of my time, with Scholarship dropping to 15% on average.

Across all ten years, the average percentages are Teaching 45%, Scholarship 25% and Service 30%. Am I happy with these overall numbers? I guess so. But if they were different, I think I would still be happy with them. I suppose it’s because for the most part, I have the freedom as a faculty member to choose how I spend my time – a luxury compared to many other professions. Yes, I have teaching obligations but I greatly look forward to spending my time in this area. Service is part of being a good citizen of the institution and the community. Scholarship is where I get to enjoy thinking broadly about education and science, with the breadth defined by Boyer. The three categories have substantial overlap, for example, I’ve served multiple years on the curriculum committee, something I’m very interested in even though it can be tedious at times.

How will I spend my time in future years? I don’t know. At some later point I might end up in a more administrative role, because I’m very organized and decently good at management activities. Teaching is still my favorite activity by far, and my enthusiasm has not flagged in the last ten years. In fact, if anything I might be more excited about it now then ten years ago, judging by the number of new ideas I get but have not the time and energy to implement. I’ve also noticed that I read more widely now compared to when I was a new assistant professor. Back then, I read very narrowly in my subfield. My interests have certainly broadened over the years. I can’t believe I’ve been blogging regularly for 2.5 years. Where does the time go, indeed?

OER and the Content Trap

OER stands for Open Educational Resources. A couple of weeks ago I read the following blog post titled The OER Content Trap by Jim Luke. Other related posts to that he links to are also worth reading, and I found them informative, although I haven’t read the recommended book, The Content Trap. Luke’s main point is that we should focus not on the content, but rather on the connections and community of open education. Focusing on content is a trap, and drawing up the battle lines between advocates of adopting “open” textbooks and the for-profit “publishing” industry is a losing strategy.

He writes: “We’re not alone in this trap. Nearly all higher ed institutions are there too. They almost all think their special sauce is in the courses they teach or the research publications they produce. They’re wrong. Similarly, the special sauce in open education isn’t the OER, the resources, books, video and content. The real special value is in the connections people make, the community that forms, and the identities they forge.”

A look at my college’s chemistry curriculum bears this out. Our courses aren’t special in terms of content; they’re special in terms of the relationships we forge between teacher and student thanks to our small class sizes. Our introductory science major courses, General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, use standard publisher textbooks – less for the content, and more for the online homework system. Less instructor grading, more immediate feedback for the students, and more importantly it gets them to practice working on problems multiple times a week – which is essential for learning chemistry. There are caveats to the online homework system that I’ve written about in previous posts.

Even in the junior and senior level classes, Biochemistry, Physical Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry, standard texts are typically used. I teach one semester of P-Chem (Quantum Chemistry) with a textbook, but the other semester (Statistical Thermodynamics and Kinetics) without one. And this semester I’ve chosen to teach my non-majors chemistry course without a textbook as part of an OER initiative by our library. There are various reasons for these choices, but much of it has focused on the content and to some extent the pedagogy. Trying to keep costs lower for students does factor into the decision, given how expensive tertiary education can be in the United States particularly at a private institution.

How did I choose my OER? Not surprisingly, and perhaps naively on my part, I chose my resources based on content. I do recognize that’s not the special sauce of my class, and I’d like to think the special sauce has to do with what happens in my classroom. The OER provides pre-class reading and practice problems. Essentially, I’m just using the OER for content – and because of the choices I made to keep the “textbook cost” at zero, the particular set of OER I have chosen do not come with an online homework system for practice. I do have homework that students turn in (although not too much). I’m trying to include more formative assessment strategies in my classroom activities. And I’m exhorting the students to practice, practice, practice, but to some extent allowing them to decide how much time and energy they wish to put into it. The students who put in the work do well, and those who don’t – well, they don’t do well. A voice in my head justifies my choice as “treating students as adults”, but does this approach really serve the students well? That’s debatable.

For-profit publishers have also been moving away from content. Witness the rise of data analytics and A.I.-based adaptive learning coupled to an online homework system. While no big publisher will make the bold claim right now that the relationship between student and machine is what counts (because right now they rely on professors assigning their online systems so that students “buy” them), that’s where we’re headed. Professors are still being wooed, judging by the strategy of sales representatives, but increasingly the pitch is made to university administration, both to the academic side and student affairs.

I suspect that Luke is correct in exhorting OER advocates to steer away from the content trap. For the Open community to out-innovate the for-profit juggernaut, it needs to focus on the community. The percentage of harried instructors who would want to spend much of their time mixing and re-mixing OER content is likely to always remain small. So just putting out content is not going to be enough, particularly as the for-profit products with their powerful data analytics increasingly present “evidence” that their systems result in better educational outcomes for the student. One could debate what these educational outcomes should be, but a high-minded idealistic outcome (most often trotted out by liberal arts colleges) is likely to prove unconvincing over time as strategic decision-making becomes increasingly tactical and short-term. A sad situation, but we’re already seeing this happening in higher education.

I’m not exactly what to do next. Maybe that’s a summer project. In the meantime, I need to do a better job in my non-majors class this semester. The Spring Forward time change sapped my energy in class this Monday (waking up an hour early), and I did not do a good job. But tomorrow is a new day!

Potions Prologue

Since I set myself the goal (in my most recent blog post) of starting a draft to the introduction of my Potions textbook by the end of the week, I was sufficiently motivated to put something together. So without further ado, here’s a draft of what may be the Prologue to the book.

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You may be wondering why Potions is a core subject in a school of magic. Isn’t Potions just similar to the Muggle study of Chemistry? Shouldn’t learning how to cast spells be sufficient to cover the needs of any young wizard or witch? Why should I learn Potions?

These are excellent questions.

While Potions shares many similarities to Chemistry, it also includes the use of magical ingredients in addition to the “natural” ingredients used by Muggles. Furthermore, the use of potions has proved significantly more efficacious when used to change the internal structures of living things. Casting a healing spell may “fix” the superficial external parts of an injury, but living beings are very complex internally. Healing the internal parts that we cannot observe with the naked eye is very difficult. Without a detailed understanding of the tiny world of atoms and molecules, a spell could easily go awry and cause even more damage. That is why Potions are prevalent in the Healing Arts.

Think about what you need to cast a successful magic spell. Remember that magic is the manipulation of matter and energy, powered by your wand and your mental focus. While the wand is the instrument used to channel and direct the energy, it is your mental focus and imagination that initiates or creates the spell. The incantation helps to focus the spell’s action, but it need not be verbally spoken. Similarly, moving your wand using particular hand actions helps to focus the action, but the source of working the spell is your concentration and ability to visualize what you want the spell to do.

If you wanted to move an object with the Locomotor spell, you need to fix your mind on the object’s movement as you cast the spell. If you cannot imagine the object’s movement in your mind, your spell will fail even if you utter the correct incantation and flick your wand in the right direction. When you cast Aguamenti you are drawing unseen water vapor from your surroundings and condensing it in a particular location. You don’t need to understand the molecular structure of water to be successful – the imagining of liquid water, which you are very familiar with, appearing in a particular location, is all that you need to do in your mind. On the other hand, creating water in a parched environment is much more challenging and requires advanced magical understanding.

Apparition is dangerous if you are not familiar with your destination because your imagination may transport you to a different location that “looks” similar to what you held in your mind’s eye. And if that location is too far away, it may draw far too much energy to move your own weight in the blink of an eye. Remember that the energy required to magically move objects is still dependent on the mass of the object, the distance moved, and the time taken. (Muggles study this in Physics.) You may deplete your own energy with very serious consequences.

True Transfiguration is particularly challenging. What you have learned at an introductory level is to reshape the transfigured object so that it externally resembles a different object. But this transformation is only temporary because most spellcasters only imagine the externality of the object that is seen, while paying little attention to the unseen internal parts that may be crucial to sustaining the object’s long-term structure or behavior. The more complex the objects, the more difficult the transfiguration, and the effects are often only temporary. If the internal structure is not also appropriately transfigured, after some time the object will likely revert back to its original structure, deform in some other way or fall apart to dust.

The Polyjuice Potion is now well-known due to recent events in the magical world. Preparation and use of this potion outside of class is strictly prohibited. You should have no reason to impersonate someone else. However, the Polyjuice Potion illustrates an important point. You could cast a transfiguration spell on yourself to change your appearance to mimic another, but it is highly unlikely you will get all the details exactly right. Without the right bone and muscular structure, you are likely to walk and move differently. You would not have the same smell, nor would you sound like the one you are impersonating. It is almost impossible to mimic both the internal and external, without a solid understanding of the particularities of the unseen internal structure. Thus, Polyjuice Potion is more effective, but its effects are still temporary in the current published formulation.

The study of Potions is not just about mixing different substances together in your cauldron for a whiz and a bang. Potions is a subtle Art. A student who masters not just the techniques for preparing potions, but strives to understand the Theory of Potions, will lay a foundation for casting spells of great power. Understanding the internal workings of Chemistry, and being able to imagine the movement and structures of the building blocks of matter (atoms and molecules), will yield magic most powerful – one that knits together internal and external structures into a unified whole. With a thorough understanding of Chemistry you could cast a spell to create water even in the most parched environment.

While Muggles do not possess magic, their study of the Sciences has allowed them to manipulate matter and energy creatively and powerfully. If only our magic did not interfere with the workings of Muggle electricity, we would be able to take advantage of their numerous creations. But if we learned their Chemistry, we could not only rival their creations but surpass them. The “technology” of the Muggles has made them lazy. So-called “machines” do their work and even thinking for them. We, however, will learn Chemistry to strengthen the creativity of our minds and allow us to focus our mental energy and power to work the most sublime magic.

While you may find the potion recipes of greatest interest initially, I urge you to persevere through the Theory parts of this book. Therein lies the secret to powerful magic. Anyone can read and follow a recipe, but those who wish to tread the path of greatness must understand the fundamental secrets behind the mixtures of different substances – the essence of Potions.

Spring Reflections

Spring Break is a good point to reflect on the semester thus far, and what changes I would like to make in the second half.

My second semester General Chemistry honors class is going very well (in my opinion)! On average the students did great on the first exam. While I would like to attribute it to my teaching prowess, more likely this group is simply a strong class. There is plenty of class participation and question-asking from the students without my prompting. After four solid weeks for thermodynamics, we started on a unit covering liquids, vapor pressure and solutions. There’s still a strong thermodynamic slant to the explanatory arguments, but I’ve also managed to weave in more origin-of-life research into the present unit.

Students started out reading the original 1953 Miller experiment paper, calculating substance quantities of in the reaction mixture, and considering the oxidation states of various reactants and products. I’ve used this exercise before, although I modify it slightly every year to streamline the questions. This time around I added a follow-up homework set that incorporated Henry’s Law to estimate substance solubilities in a reducing versus a neutral atmosphere and why Strecker intermediates might be favorable in the reaction. I tried to prompt the students to make use of other things they have learned without explicitly saying so. After the calculation questions, my two last two (more open-ended) questions were:

·      If instead of the reducing atmosphere, the main sources of carbon and nitrogen are CO₂ and N₂, suggest why might it be difficult to form glycine?

·       In a Urey-Miller atmosphere, the suggested reaction mechanism involves the formation of CH₂O and HCN from the reactants prior to forming glycine. Suggest reasons why this might make sense.

Some of the student responses were quite thoughtful, weaving in oxidation state considerations, bond energies, thermodynamic arguments, molecular polarity, and solubility issues.

In this unit, I spend a few minutes at the beginning of each class walking them through the follow-up experiments and discoveries with Urey-Miller-type syntheses. We talked about how different “atmospheres” synthesize different amino acids, the problem of racemic mixtures, and relevant compounds found in the Murchison meteorite. In the midst of discussing colligative properties with the students, I was able to bring up the 27-year old serendipitous NH₄CN “deep freeze” experiment, which the students found fascinating (judging from the rapt attention I was getting). When the students return from Spring Break, we will be discussing a paper on primitive cell membranes. (I assigned Spring Break reading along with discussion questions!)

My non-majors class started well, but it feels bogged down somewhat in the last couple of weeks. I think I might have been too ambitious in how much material I was trying to “cover” in the first half of the semester. While the students did marginally better on the first exam than the previous year, there were still some significant basic conceptual gaps in understanding. I think I need to do a few more formative assessment exercises. We did a couple in class the week before the exam, essentially having students critique some of the answers they submitted in earlier quizzes. (I pick 4-5 representative answers that may range from having minor flaws to major ones. The students discuss them in small groups, and then I call on students to present and we have a larger class discussion.) Yesterday, I prepared another set for my Monday class next week.

I also need to get started on the Potions project portion of the class. I told the students not to worry about it in the first half of the semester and to focus on learning chemistry basics. But now that we are moving into the second half, I need to start providing some direction. I have made no progress in my potions “textbook”, so my goal this week is to write an introductory section. Maybe I should commit to having part of it in my next blog post later this week. Hopefully that motivates me to get it done! I also need to settle on writing up one example of Potion Design that the students can use as a guide so they know what to expect. Unless I get any other good ideas, I will probably settle on the magical cyanide antidote I had previously considered.

Other than that, I’m taking advantage of the peace and quiet to catch up on research projects, write student recommendation letters and read some origin-of-life papers. All three activities are a pleasure, but they are more productive when one isn’t constantly interrupted, as befits their reflective nature. My research students will also spend some of the time catching up on their projects, but I’m sure they are very glad to also just take a break! I’ve told them I’m around if they have questions, but I’m not going to hound anyone. It is Spring Break after all, and one should take time to be reflective.

The Easiness Effect

Who comes up with journal acronyms? I would not have picked PUS, but there may not be much choice when your journal is aptly titled Public Understanding of Science. In a recent paper (cited in the picture below), the authors tackle the easiness effect based on a study in Germany. With German efficiency, the title of the article tells you exactly what it’s about: “When science becomes too easy: Science popularization inclines laypeople to underrate their dependence on experts”

I recommend reading the entire article in full if you’re interested; I will not do justice to the details as I pick and choose what caught my eye in this blog post. One premise of the study is that experts and non-experts (referred to as laypeople in the article) process incoming scientific information differently. This certainly impacts how one chooses the appropriate pedagogy to teach science at different levels depending on student background. As science educators, we should strive to educate all students regardless of their chosen major/specialty to evaluate scientific claims fairly and critically – this is perhaps even more crucial for students not planning to major in science (or who “hated” science in school).

About the paradoxical position that non-scientists find themselves, the author writes: “[They] frequently have to judge the validity of scientific knowledge claims that are of great relevance for their lives, but they lack the necessary epistemic capabilities to make such judgments adequately. The result is that laypeople have to make use of the division of expertise and consult pertinent others on whose evaluation they can rely. By deferring to experts, laypeople can make indirect use of the specialized knowledge required for adequate validity judgments.” Some words of caution are in order: “[This] does not mean that laypeople should trust others blindly and unconditionally. Individuals should calibrate their trust to avoid misinformation by assessing the expert sources for their pertinence, competence, and benevolence.” Given the times we live in, this advice seems particularly timely. Previously, I had only thought about pertinence and competence, and had not considered benevolence – but I think I understand what the authors are getting at.

The study compares popularized (i.e. simplified) versions of science articles to ones that are more technical, but still relatively readable. All articles were related to health for wider reader interest, and articles of each type were paired up to cover the same specific topical material. All articles chosen had a central message implying a causal linkage, e.g., “eating chilies decreases blood pressure” and “coffee protects against prostate cancer”. Source information was removed so that participants did not know the identity of the publication or the author. None of the participants had advanced training in the health professions. The study assessed a number of variables and I think it was overall well designed, at least in my limited opinion as a non-expert in this type of research. My one beef is that the sample size was rather small, and it would be interesting to see similar larger-scale studies.

The results: Not surprisingly, popularized articles were deemed “easier” to comprehend. Participants also “agreed” more with the conclusions of the popularized version compared to the more technical one. Interestingly, participants did not rate popularized versions as more credible. Earlier studies that had the same effect were cited. The suggested reason for this is that laypeople “distinguish between what they consider to be objectively credible in terms of official science, and what they personally accept as true.” This is an important lesson to those of us who are scientists. Just because I communicate something that is “backed up by good science” and seems so clear and compelling to me, does not mean it will change someone’s mind or prior beliefs. It might, but it might not.

The most interesting result from the study is that “laypeople were more confident about their own claim judgments after reading popularized depictions. [They had] a higher trust in their own judgment based on current knowledge, and conversely, a weaker desire for advice from a more knowledgeable source (italics mine). Interestingly, preference for [this] strategy… after obtaining further content information was not affected by either time of measurement or text genre.” That’s a scary thought. In the age of easily accessible information of varying credibility, a well-placed popular article could do great good or harm. It also makes me wonder whether this phenomenon extends beyond science. When I read any popular article outside my field, does that weaken my desire for advice from a more knowledgeable source? I’d like to think not, but unless I was in “researcher mode” trying to get to the bottom of something, I could well be deceiving myself in a buoy of confidence from having “comprehended” something I read. Worse, expertise in one area sometimes goes to our head and we think that we also know better in other areas. Curse of the Ph.D., perhaps.

The authors speculate that a possible explanation for this strategy is that it “might be considered the socially desirable action. Schools focus on encouraging students to think critically by themselves, neglecting the need to judge which expert to trust and when to defer judgment to experts.” The authors close with a section on “Implications for science communication and education”. They suggest caution and thoughtfulness on the part of those who communicate science “when adapting scientific information for lay readers” and they affirm the importance of continuing to communicate clearly and accessibly. Interestingly, there is research suggesting that “the easiness effect can be mitigated by pointing to the controversial and complex nature of scientific topics,” but only partially.

All this reminds me of those moments when I think I should try to be a little less clear in presenting scientific topics and knowledge in the classroom. The clarity sometimes lead to students deceiving themselves that they understand something that they don’t. (That’s why doing some homework after every class is important!) Make the students work a little harder cognitively to “make it stick”.