Portrait of mathematician Ada Lovelace, by Alfred Edward Chalon (public domain via wikimedia)

It’s sad but true that there’s a worldwide backlash against science, facts and evidence.

Misha Ketchell from The Conversation was on 3RRR today, explaining among other things the ‘false equivalence’ line of thinking, which is how we get into this mess of discrediting researchers across many fields. The voice of a clueless but confidently opinionated blogger can now be perceived as equivalent to a researcher with 30 years experience and all the data. Kind of disheartening.

This started from a question about “Fake News”, and Misha made the strong point that fake news is actually a specific thing that happened during the US elections when a group of people spread misinformation for the purposes of making money. (The Saturday Paper produced a great article outlining this phenomenon.)

The Conversation has become one of my preferred outlets of information, because they’re connecting the knowledge of academia with the world of journalism. Academics must find a way to make their research accessible, while the public gains awareness of knowledge that was previously hidden behind the academic moat.

Great interview: here’s the “listen-on-demand” link from RRR, interview with Misha starts round the 10 minute mark, until roughly 30min: http://ondemand.rrr.org.au/player/128/201710231200 

Image credit: Alfred Edward Chalon, wikimedia 

Reading a book i picked up in Cambodia .. about the neuro-plasticity of the brain: Norman Doidge, “The Brain that Changes itself“.

Chapter One tells the story of a scientist back in 1969, who hooked up a computer to a camera .. and wired it all into a small pixellated metal plate, touching the skin of a person who had been blind since birth.

He did this because he wanted to show that the brain’s visual cortex can take sensory input from .. not only eyes but also skin. Touch can create a picture .. and the brain can adapt to turn this into vision. After a few weeks of practising, the person was experiencing something very like vision.

Nice experiment!

However back then, people hated the idea that the brain could re-make itself back then, so his research went largely un-noticed.

Here’s Dr Doidge talking on Slow TV, the Australian Monthly series:

Related stuff:

• Author Norman on 7.30 report
• Norman on Slow TV: part i, part ii (rss at blip.tv)
• The book at Readings
• Knitted brains!!

photo credit: onkel_wart

hey guess what, handing in thesis right now!!

yes i feel very amazing, totally thrilled and completely happy. Oh the relief. Now i can go out dancing every night for a week.

it was a chilly wednesday morning when i finally had the whole thing printed off and bound. Had to print several pages double sided with colour vs b/w. Hours at the office after work. Drove to Footscray, returned half a million library books, and handed over the two-inch thick volume. “Well that must be a relief,” said the head of department. Yeah. i’ll be feeling that relief for months!